2018 Personality of the Year nominee: AU President Paul Kagame

It’s that time of the year again when we look back on the news year and pick a person or institution that impacted the news over the course of the last twelve months.

Our nominations is the first of a three-step process. A weeklong online – Twitter poll – will in addition to our in-house poll lead to the crowning of our personality of the year – January 1, 2019.

Rwanda has over the past years become an African Union annex of sorts. Three instances: the 2016 launch of the African passport, hosting talks on AU reforms and 2018 launch of the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA.

Core to Kigali’s continental emergence is President Paul Kagame, an open adherent for AU reforms. It is no surprise that his tenure as President of the AU has seen concrete efforts at the passing and implementation of wide ranging reforms.

Despite reservations back home on the political and human rights space, the country is also touted as having made significant socio-economic leaps post the 1994 genocide.

Our team has thus nominated Paul Kagame for his push in the area of AU reforms seeing that he has managed to achieve landmark reforms for the continental body within his 12-months at the helm.